


Out Of Habit

by kcstories



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Romance, Snark, past mulder/scully, post original series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:56:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kcstories/pseuds/kcstories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder is on the run, and Krycek is not as dead as he should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out Of Habit

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Written for Sandrine in the fourth round of Slashfest.   
> **Disclaimer:** The X-Files belong to Chris Carter, 20th Century Fox et al. This story was written for fun, not profit.  
> **Warnings:** AU-ish. Some strong language, graphic sexual content, mild angst, snark, and spoilers for all nine seasons.

Another day on the highways and another sleepless night spent in some dreary motel room that's outrageously expensive for the unsanitary dump that it is.

At least I still have plenty of money left in that account; the one they don't know about; the only one they couldn't lay their hands on because it's under an assumed name.

Certain people clearly underestimated my mother, and it's funny how some secrets were never revealed even as all around us, the world as we knew it crumbled to dust.

It's been over three years now; three years of living as a fugitive.

Scully and I were supposed to head for the border and to start a new life in Canada.

I hope that she has done so in the meantime, in the seven months since I last saw her.

It was my idea that she should leave me, try to track down her remaining family and move to safer pastures; though 'safe' has probably never been a more relative term than it is today.

The pressure was getting to her, as well as the stress of constantly being on the road, and as for our relationship…

I'd be lying if I said that I don't love her anymore, and sometimes I truly miss her, but in hindsight, we were probably better off friends than lovers.

Too much had come to stand between us: sadness, spite, accusations that could never be voiced because we'd only end up arguing and finally, the bitter aftermath of all the things we'd lost.

Something inside her shattered when fate forced her into giving up William.

She'd always wanted a child and he was the only one she could ever have, the only one _we_ could ever have, and having only me back could have never compensated for that— not in a million years.

Besides, what did I still have to offer her? A few more months, years, decades of running and hiding? A couple more futile attempts at unearthing a truth that might never be unraveled or would only end up instantly buried again if it ever was?

At the end of the day, I'm glad that she left, and relieved that I managed to convince her to go.

This search for the truth has always been my life's work, and I'll be the one to finish it, or to die trying.

And is it still worth it?

It's possible that none of us will ever know for sure, but it's pointless to ponder or even to think too much about anything relating to the future.

I have to focus on the task at hand, concentrate on what to do next, follow up on that new lead I got yesterday to start with.

Well, if I can even call it that, but it's the first possible break I've had in seven months, after some joker sent me on a wild goose chase all around Tennessee.

Not a single word since then, not one newspaper article and no friends from the past anywhere to be found.

Doggett, Reyes, Skinner; where have they all gone? Fled? Been eliminated? I hope that it's the former and that they've all made it out of the country safely, for this quest has already cost me even more dearly than I thought it would, and it's still not over; not by a long shot.

I was close to losing hope completely, but then I discovered that note taped under the windshield.

Someone was willing to provide me with answers.

I'm well aware that I'm probably nuts to even consider meeting a total stranger in these perilous circumstances, but then not going isn't exactly an option either, because I'd never stop regretting or wondering, "What if?"

So I'll meet whoever it is tomorrow afternoon, and I'll take my gun, just in case.

It's one hell of a relief, and looking back on the last couple of years, maybe something of a miracle too that I haven't run out of bullets yet.

  
*****

  
The very minute I recognize the man sitting there in that roadside café, the only reason I refrain from rushing up to him and smashing his smug face in is because we're in a public place.

Oh, that and the fact that he's supposed to be dead.

I witnessed him die.

Of course, I saw him reappear as a ghost too, though at the time I had my suspicions about the guards spiking my soda, for not only was he a ghost, he was a helpful one too, and something about the second part of that equation really didn't add up.

You know that cheesy saying, "Heaven doesn't want me, and hell's afraid I might take over"?

That's Alex Krycek in a nutshell, and moreover, he'd love the hell out of purgatory if such a place really exists. I wouldn't be surprised if he's already got himself a season ticket.

Across the room, he's grinning at me. He looks as cocky and confident as he ever did, and something about the absurdity of my present predicament almost makes me burst out laughing.

Have ghosts acquired a taste for coffee and doughnuts recently? Or am I missing something essential here? No one actually went and cloned the bastard, did they? The last thing the world needs are multiple copies of him scurrying about, wreaking havoc wherever they roam.

"Mulder," he says, unperturbed, as soon as I'm standing by his table. "Why don't you sit down? Join me for a coffee?"

I nod and so as not to attract anyone's attention, do as he suggests. I'm a wanted man, after all, a traitor according to the US government, and standing out in the crowd is just about the last thing I need.

He gestures for the waitress and orders one more of what he's having.

I already have a feeling that the doughnut will have all the flavor of soggy cardboard and leave a bitter aftertaste besides.

I observe him in silence, barely resisting the urge to glare or kick. Kicking would be vastly more satisfying, I decide. How did this bastard ever end up bulletproof anyhow?

The waitress brings my order, a cup of coffee and a suspicious-looking doughnut with shiny pink glazing. Scully definitely wouldn't approve. She'd have it sent off for analysis, at the very least.

I take a sip from my coffee. It's not Starbucks, but it'll do, and I silently admonish myself to calm down.

He looks at me, his expression cool and collected, but his eyes full of questions.

I say the first thing that comes to mind, and granted, it isn't necessarily the most eloquent, but at least I've got the common sense to whisper it: "You're dead, Krycek."

He smiles, unfazed. "Not exactly."

I frown at him. He gives me another smile and instantly, with all the force of a raging tsunami, the overpowering urge to punch him in the face rises to the surface once more.

"Alien implants are amazing things, Mulder," he tells me in a soft, neutral tone as he casually stirs his coffee with the small plastic spoon.

I wonder when he started taking sugar, and then I'm puzzled that I would still remember something like that. I hope that it merely got lodged in my brain as part of some 'know thy enemy' strategy. The alternative is truly too messed up to even contemplate.

"Alien technology," he continues, "is a lot more advanced than ours, as I'm sure you've noticed. They've figured out how to say, allow barren women to get pregnant, or to give people the ability to astrally project themselves at will, or to make bullets about as harmless as fairy dust." He pauses for a moment and then with a contemplative look adds, "It's just a real shame that our associates from outer space are such murderous sons of bitches, or this colonization might actually be a step forward for us all."

"Right." I have to snort at that. "So…"

"So?" he parrots

"Am I supposed to thank you now, Krycek?"

"Thank me?" His face is a mask of innocent confusion, but I'm not buying it for a second.

"Well, you do have some information for me, don't you? Or did you just lure me all the way out here for your own twisted amusement or to announce your continued presence among the living?"

He smiles. "I've got some information, all right. Once we're done here."

I roll my eyes and against my better judgment, take a bite off my doughnut.

I was right. It tastes revolting.

  
*****

  
So he has a plan and some documents securely stashed away somewhere, hard proof he managed to obtain before the rest of it was destroyed.

"Being technically dead has its advantages," he tells me with a grin. "Maybe Skinner should have shot me sooner."

I'm tempted to reply, "Yeah, about ten years ago," but I wouldn't want to lose the opportunity to finally get the answers I seek, so I grit my teeth instead.

He mentions a vault in an abandoned warehouse two states away, and I have to ask myself what these people's bizarre and unrelenting obsession with warehouses is all about. I wonder what Freud would have made of it; or Jerry Springer, even. Is that show still running these days? I haven't the slightest clue.

Krycek suggests we drive down tomorrow.

I must be crazy to agree, but then I haven't been called sane in a very long time, so I guess that works out nicely.

  
*****

  
He's quiet in the car, hardly says a word. It's pretty puzzling and nothing compared to how he acted during that brief period when we worked together and he pretended to be on my side. 

In truth, the only side he's ever been on is his own, and so I won't be surprised if it turns out that there is some kind of personal agenda involved here as well.

Maybe he needs to get his sorry ass out of trouble again.

Unless it's revenge that he's after and he wants to punish them for what they took from him, too and for what they did to Marita in the end…

Or maybe his sole objective is to string me along. He's always had a real knack for that.

  
*****

  
The motel is as seedy as the others were, and the guy at the check-in desk gives us some shifty looks that luckily subside when I ask for two single rooms.

Krycek's is next to mine. I have no idea whether that should be cause for concern, but I guess that if the bastard really wanted to kill me, he would have already done so on the way here. Dumping my remains in the desert would have been a piece of cake too.

I suppress a yawn and realize that this time tomorrow, the running should finally be over and done with. I'll either have the proof he's promised me or I'll have been lured into some deadly trap... again.

Frankly, either option would be perfectly fine with me and you know, I never thought I'd say this, but as I stand here now, looking around another dingy room, it feels as though I've at last lost the strength to go on. What's still left worth fighting for anyway?

Well, I guess the answer to that could be 'the world', but that's the kind of thing an idealist would say and that Mulder hasn't lived here in a long time.

I kick off my shoes and rub my tired eyes. There's not much chance of catching any sleep tonight— my insomnia came back with a vengeance after Scully left, so I plop myself down on the narrow bed, grab the remote and flick on the TV.

Well, I try to, but the damn thing's broken. Why am I even surprised?

Sighing, I get up and try the television switch.

No signal.

I shake my head and lie back down on the bed, resigning myself to a night of staring at the ceiling and thinking too much. Not a very good plan, no matter which way you look at it.

Is it still worth it, this ongoing quest for the truth? 

The question rings through my head before I can stop it.

I don't have any answers, but I can no longer deny that Scully was right about one thing.

We were completely different people before all of this began.

  
*****

  
Around 2 a.m. there's a knock at my door. I sigh as I get up and wonder what the hell Krycek wants this time.

It can't be anyone but him. Despite everything else I should take into consideration and all possible threats I ought to be worried about, there's no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" he asks casually; too casually by far. Subtlety has never been one of his talents.

"I don't sleep," I tell him. My tone is snippy, but what the hell? The son of a bitch deserves it.

"I know," he says.

I cross my arms and frown at him.

"You should realize by now, Mulder, that I know everything there is to know about you."

I snort and shake my head, not believing a single word of his tripe, and all I can think is that even after everything that has happened, he's still the same smarmy bastard from before, though I can't for the life of me comprehend why I suddenly find that thought kind of reassuring.

"What do you want?" I ask flatly. I'm not in the mood for one of his little games, not even if that might mean alleviating my boredom.

He holds up a large brown paper bag. I didn't notice it before. Way to go, Mulder! The FBI's most unwanted has now also become the Bureau's most likely to be given a clue for Christmas.

"I brought pizza and beer."

I blink and before I can say anything in response, he strides right past me into my motel room.

I roll my eyes. Great! This is all I need.

  
*****

  
And so we eat the pizza and drink the beer, because there's nothing else to do and I'm hungrier than I realized.

I don't register the moment when the real bite vanishes from our conversation, when things become somehow… _pleasant_, but somewhere at the back of my mind I'm well aware that I probably shouldn't be enjoying his company, taking into account who he is, what he's done and how many people he has killed, including my own father.

Krycek supposedly had his reasons for that. He even told Marita that father was a dead man anyway, but even now, I don't know what to believe.

Still, I find myself thinking that he used to be likable once. I took to him instantly when we first met, even though he was a little green behind the ears and looked like he dressed in the dark. I used to joke about it sometimes with the other guys at the office. Even on a good day, some of Krycek's ties could have easily blinded you.

Assassin clichés aside, I have to say that all black suits him much better.

"Well, thank you, Mulder. I had no idea you'd even noticed." He's grinning at me as he says it, and I could smack myself.

Did I really say all that out loud? Well, I must have done, or is telepathy another thing our new alien overlords gifted him with?

And I probably shouldn't joke about something like that, if only in my own head. 

"So much for your keen observation skills, knowing everything about me," I reply, mildly shocked to discover that my voice is slurring.

I shouldn't actually be surprised, though. I haven't had any alcohol in quite some time. 

Without Scully, pizza and beer just felt too weird; too painful, too. It used to be our thing, even back when we were 'just good friends'. I don't mind telling you, I really miss those days.

The bastard sitting next to me on the floor probably knows all about that, but slowly but surely I'm growing too numb to give a shit, or too drunk, though I'm not exactly wasted yet, just mildly intoxicated.

"Oh, on the contrary. I think I'm quite observant," he says. He doesn't seem to be affected by the drink at all. Then again, he probably slugs back Vodka by the gallons. Finishing a whole six-pack of beer in one sitting probably wouldn't even do anything to him anymore.

So what made me think that this was a good idea again?

Yeah, that's right. This way, the night would pass a lot quicker and be considerably less boring, as tends to be the case when there's a murderous bastard in the room with you.

Well, my gun's still within arms reach, isn't it?

It is. Thank God.

"How are you observant, then?" I put to him, determined not to let him get the better of me even as the buzz of the cheap beer does.

"Well, Fox," he says in a voice that's far too husky and that really shouldn't send a shiver up and down my spine in the enticing way that it does, "let's just say that there are certain… _things_ I found out about you. How do the British call them again, 'youthful indiscretions'? Yeah, I think that's it. Didn't even take all that much digging, either."

"Oh?" I say, trying to sound unaffected and willing my breathing to steady. I have no idea what he's talking about, but then I imagine that here and now I'm not exactly my usual quick-witted self either.

"Oxford," he continues with a grin that implies that I ought to know what he's referring to, except that I still haven't the damnedest idea. "It wasn't just Phoebe Green, was it?"

I blink. "What wasn't?"

"Word has it, Mulder, that you were pretty friendly with some Irish guy named Paddy, too. Can't remember his last name, but I'm sure it'll come back to me. It had to be kept a secret. If your father had ever stumbled across—"

"My father," I snap, "is dead. But you'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Krycek?"

He shakes his head and laughs in my face.

Disgusted, I move to get up, but he pins me down to the floor, and I'm baffled once again by the strength in his prosthetic arm.

"You're impossible," he tells me, towering over me, and then his warm breath is ghosting over my face and his lips are way too close for comfort. "No wonder it took you so long to finally get Scully in the sack. You're supposed to be some big shot profiler, a genius in the field of behavioral psychology, and still you manage to be the most oblivious person I've ever met. You really can't see what's right in front of your fucking eyes, can you?"

I open my mouth to say something— please God, _anything_— to shut him up, but the world is spinning from too much beer and way too many words, and then it spins even more because he's kissing me, and I'm too numb to struggle and too drunk to care and I figure that this is probably just something else we need to get out of our system, so we might as well get on with it.

I kiss him back and he seems surprised, shocked even. I'd grin if my mouth wasn't otherwise occupied, and I resolve to analyze this later, if there is anything left to analyze.

The funny thing is that I haven't thought about Paddy Logan in years, and it was a one-time thing, didn't even go very far.

Besides, a lot of the guys I knew at Oxford experimented— with drugs, sex, each other. It was no big deal.

Still, if it makes Krycek happy to think that he's got some hold over me, he's welcome to it, though let's be realistic, he's really grasping at straws here, isn't he?

I've already been sentenced to death. In the grand scheme of things, what difference is being outed as bisexual going to make?

And as I'm considering all this at the back of my head, Krycek's hand is moving lower, traveling down my sweater until it finally comes to rest at the waistband of my jeans.

He stares down at me for a minute, and I almost laugh again.

It would be just like him to chicken out now, when things get a little too definite, too dangerous, too _real_.

This would have been more fun, I'm sure, if I'd put up a struggle.

Or maybe not. He's as much an enigma now as he ever was.

I look at him in challenge.

He kisses me again, and I think that if I had any sanity left at all, thirty-three seconds ago would have been the one true defining moment where I finally lost it.

I vaguely hear the sound of a zipper being pulled and then I'm extremely aware of his warm hand on my hard cock.

He's looking at me questioningly, clearly expecting me to say something, but I decide, to hell with it all, I'm done talking for today.

I grab the back of his head, tangle my hands in his hair and pull his face to mine. I'm not as gentle or careful as I could be, but whatever, he can handle it.

We kiss again; deep, needy, urgent kisses that leave us both breathless. 

He wraps his hand around my cock and he begins to stroke. From his technique, I'd say that I'm not the only one here who's messed around with another guy before, but I could be wrong. 

Either way, it looks like I've finally discovered that not all of Krycek's talents involve death and destruction. I'll probably laugh about this later. Or not, because it really isn't all that funny and I must be out of my mind for doing this in the first place, but it's too late to stop now. 

I hear a deep moan— Mine? His? It doesn't matter— and he picks up the pace.

I'm too buzzed to hold back or to last all that long. A few more fast, hard strokes from that talented hand, and the scream that reverberates through the room next is definitely my own. 

I close my eyes for a few seconds and when I open them again, intent on returning the favor, he's already finishing himself off, frantically pumping his cock with the hand that's still covered in my come. 

I swallow thickly, wishing that I was more alert to appreciate the sight. This easily one of the hottest things I've ever seen. "Fuck, Alex," I mutter. 

He lets out a strangled cry and spills himself over his hand and the carpet below, before he collapses on top of me.

The weight of his body feels strangely intimate

I hear him whisper something in Russian. I don't know what it is, and my last conscious thought before sleep abruptly claims me is that I probably won't remember those words come morning; not enough to write them down phonetically and to somehow look them up later.

For reasons I don't want to analyze— not now, possibly not ever— I find that oddly disappointing. 

  
*****

  
The following morning I wake up alone and my head is killing me, not to mention the ominous churning in my stomach.

A box of Alka-Seltzer is conveniently placed on the nightstand.

Why Alex, I didn't think you cared!

I take a shower before I head downstairs, and I'm surprised when I find him sitting in the driver's seat of my car. I was sure he'd be miles away by now.

He hands me a coffee, Starbucks, and a bag of sunflower seeds.

So he has been paying attention, after all.

I get into the car.

He raises an eyebrow at me.

I don't know whether I should hit him or kiss him again. Neither seems altogether appropriate after the uncertainty last night left me with, though, so I go for option number three instead and ask flatly, "So now what?"

He shrugs and says with a grin that's just a hint too mock innocent to be casual, "We fight the future?"

I shake my head, fasten my seatbelt, and before I realize it, I'm grinning back.


End file.
